


I Wish You Couldn't Figure Me Out

by inthisdive



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-21
Updated: 2009-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthisdive/pseuds/inthisdive





	I Wish You Couldn't Figure Me Out

*

Your whole life, you've been good at puzzles, good at _figuring things out_ ; you're no detective but you're smart, and it is those smarts that have got you here to the White House, where idealism slants across your face like mid-morning sun through your office window. Where your ability to unravel the intangible into thought and idea and process it into words suddenly means something. Where you're writing, writing for your life.

It's somehow both more and less analytical than working as a lawyer, it has more depth and you drown in prepositions and epithets and sometimes it doesn't matter if your head doesn't stay above the water; you're giving yourself over to the work, to your cause.

Your whole life, you have been good at puzzles. So why can't you piece him together?

*

You've been in his office all day, crunch-curled in a chair and writing, knees almost to your chest serving as an impromptu desk. The paper is spidered with your words, and they make more sense on the paper than they did in your mind, which is something more inexplicable than even you can grasp.

He - Toby - is at his desk and he's mostly silent, his gaze preoccupied more with invisible things than notebooks and pens. If you weren't so lost in the rhythm of the writing, the synaptic-syntax of the moment, you'd ask him if he was okay.

He probably doesn't want you to ask.

Toby is the greatest enigma you have ever come across, and in the most contradictory way; when was an enigma ever so familiar? It's not that you're alike, because you aren't, but there's something in you that recognises him on a level you don't understand and aren't terribly conscious of.

Some people say that a spark of recognition, that's what true love feels like.You hope to hell that it isn't true; you don't know if love is what you're looking for.

You see - you're always unlucky in love.

*

It's not that you mean to be unlucky - it's just that you're so stripped bare sometimes that your clumsiness extends to even your heart; you lose the strings, untie the ones that bind, and you end up tangled in something and you feel helpless.

And that's not love, is it? That's not the love you've always searched for. It's not the desperate, one-touch-knowing of Romeo and his Juliet; it's not the manic-rushed need of Othello and Desdemona; it's not even the twisted-tinted-wrong possession of Macbeth and his Lady. It's not Shakespearean at all... it's _secular_ , horribly modern, and you are an old-fashioned boy at heart.

You would _court_. You would write poetry if you trusted your heart. You would come to call with flowers and you would be chaste, and you wouldn't fall into bed with a crooked smile and your heart on your sleeve - no, really, not this time - if things were just exactly right.

You think, if you could let all the pieces fall into place, that you could do great things. Even if that one greatness was falling in love - it's not something to sneeze at, is it? It could mean more than the greatness in this room, more than the perfect speech.

You wonder what Toby's one act of greatness will be.

*

"It's late," are the first words he has said to you in almost four hours. "Go home."

You shake your head, hearing him - but only just - because you have found something in your notes that _means_ something, and it needs its own orchestration; you are building to its crescendo and you're writing faster than your brain will allow. If you could think of anything but this self-told story right now, you'd be surprised Toby chose that minute to tell you to stop; can't he see you've discovered something here?

It's ten minutes, at least, before you respond. "In a minute."

You don't need to look up to feel Toby's smile. It's well-worn and weary from fondness; Toby never expected to like you. You know that, you know you're too blinding-bright and earnest, and that he seems _thrown_ by the fact that you don't exist in a personal tempest of regret and self-loathing.

You still aren't sure why Toby is like that. You figure you'll never really find out.

"We can't write all night," he says, and for once it doesn't sound like a boss talking his cub speechwriter; the tone sounds like _I want to, too_ and _trust me, I know_ ; it's like you're being let in on a secret, and above anything else you want to be let into Toby's secrets.

You put your pen down and meet his eyes.

"We don't get enough sleep as it is," he continues, and there are lines around his eyes, a gentle crinkling, which you notice and commit to memory.

You say, "But I really think I'm onto something," and he laughs, this chuckle that's not quite belly-deep but certainly genuine, and a corner of your mouth upturns into a smile that's almost sheepish and totally sincere.

"I think we both are."

"Let's have coffee," you suggest, "And give it one more hour." Toby seems more raw to you in the late night, more real, more relaxed and genuine, and _that means something_ to you, something you can't quite pinpoint.

Toby runs a hand over his chin, considering. "One more hour," he says, and you get up to get the coffee with a bounce - a real bounce - in your step.

You don't have to turn around to know that Toby is shaking his head.

*

Your whole life, you have been good at puzzles. So why can't you piece together the shock of sensation that happens when your fingers touch in the simple passing of a coffee cup?

It's not the usual puzzle metaphor, you know that. It's not that you _fit together_ ; it's that his pieces are your flipside, shadow to your light.

"Thanks," Toby says, his firm fingers grasping the mug. Yours flex in response like that was a phantom touch; you feel it so plainly that you wonder, for one dizzying second, if there are impressions of his fingers on yours, burned and branded.

You tell him "It's no problem," and you mean it.

And you start to piece him together, but only with pieces of yourself.


End file.
